CASSANDRA CAIN IS THE SECOND OLDEST CHILD. SHE WAS BORN SIX MONTHS BEFORE JASON TODD. SHE DOESN’T EVEN MEET BRUCE UNTIL SHES SEVENTEEN. SHE’S GENERALLY AN ADULT IN THE COMICS.

(Calculon voice) "All thanks to my unholy...A C T I N G T A L E N T"

90s Arrowbrothers have such a unique relationship and I will literally never stop thinking about it because. This man is not your brother but he is your dad's son and sometimes he speaks and you swear it's your dad's voice. This man is not your brother but he got the parts of being your dad's son you craved so desperately your whole life and if you could combine yourselves together you'd make either the perfect son or a total stranger. This man is not your brother but there is nobody else in the world who could understand the experience of being Oliver Queen's son. This man is not your brother but you're haunted by the same ghost. Maybe this man is your brother. Fuck.

every time I’m like “there’s no way Tom king can make this about a man” and every time I’m proven wrong

literally the post below this

The fact that this is a call back to Shiva's first ever post-Crisis appearance

Five minutes into sparring and Cass is watching Steph, currently tied up with her own cape like a burrito, caterpillar crawling towards her angrily muttering something about gnawing through her ankle tendons and thinking to herself 'what the fuck is wrong with this girl?'

Or I guess more accurately "Oh, I can't not fuck her."

Given the current ongoing comics I'm just picturing one single tabloid in Gotham that always keeps track on the Wayne kids for easy stories even if most people don't care and it's just:

"Wayne's eldest son continues commitment to improving Bludhaven as seven new charity programmes go into effect this week."

"Disrespect! Man has been ordering from local diner as Bruce Wayne's dead son for three years straight."

"All smiles as Bruce and Damian Wayne compete in school sports day."

"Cassandra Wayne seen breaking out of shady corporation with several Amazons in tow?? Narrowly avoids arrest. Will Bruce Wayne finally comment on his mysterious wild child's bizzare behaviour?"

Hey cass why are you standing like that. What are you doing with your arms

autism

I can't even be happy that Cassandra Cain's first solo book in 15 years a) came out today and b) is genuinely good. shit's just fucked, man

Cass

—

Dean Hacker, comment on “Giving Lois Lane A Second Look, For The First Time” by Kelly Thompson (CBR: She Has No Head!)

#GoLois

(via wickedjunkie)

I want more deranged Cass- give me the girl who threatened to eat Stephs hamster because she was pouting and who Steph wasnt 100% convinced she was joking.

I think for Cass’ solo they should bring in the real Kasumi

This isn’t a reputation you can fabricate in time for a mission

I think you underestimate Oracle. But a real Kasumi would be cool

Enough with the Cassandra Cain fight discourse, more Stephanie Brown fight discourse.

Someone on hellsite said she would be cunning and quick on her feet during fights, like she adlibs her way through them, I like the idea of that.

SO YEAH, INSTEAD OF SAYING "HOW WOULD CASSANDRA CAIN BEAT BATMAN!?" HOW WOULD STEPH BEAT HIM!? other than bitch-slapping him of course.

In actuality I just like imagining Steph in the fight scenarios that people constantly put Cass in, lmfao.

I endorse this discourse and have opinions!

OK, so a couple of key things to note about the better portrayals of Stephanie's abilities in comics include:

She is stealthy as fuck!

Spoiler snuck up on Batman by fucking accident, she was just going to ask him a question and he did not sense her till she spoke. What's more, Stephanie once managed to trick Dinah into leading her to Riddler's hide out. She was basically in her literal shadow through the whole city and did not get noticed, once!

I imagine a big part of this is that Stephanie grew up in an abusive household and not terribly safe environment. This meant she had to learn how to move silently of she left herself exposed, the kind of stuff Bruce would have needed ages to learn was encoded into Stephanie as a survival mechanism.

Next up, adaptability!

Stephanie is extremely adaptable, one recurring if subtle detail is that in fights anything that is not nailed down is a viable weapon. A favored one is chairs, but it can basically apply to anything, like say a brock!

Much like with her stealth I imagine this is reflective of growing up in dangerous circumstances. When almost assaulted as a child, she laid traps and armed herself and made for escape routes like it was second nature. She knows her environment and can utilize it with natural ease.

There's also her independent tech expertise!

This one is less focused on but when Stephanie first started out she was building listening devices and resin capsules on her own. As well as creating and delivery clues to the police (Or on apartment blocks) designed to draw Batman's attention and yet he never got close to figuring out she was doing it in regards to DNA, or security cameras.

Finally, she's just plain good in a scrap!

Again, with zero training she was taking out experienced criminals and even with the relatively minimal training she received she could have killed a serial killer who was a threat to Batman. More to the point however is just how much punishment she can take, training with Cass until she's throwing up and instantly being ready for more, and taking down Black Mask after literal days of torture.

Stephanie is stealthy, strategic, smart and strong.

Now as to how she'd beat Batman, honestly it depends on the context.

IE is she a villain now, is he a villain, is killing on the table, is it just a grudge match or what have you?

Ultimately, I think if she had prep time her method would involve luring/stalking Bruce to a key location. Likely somewhere she knows fairly well with lots of avenues, halls and breakable floors.

She'd aim to get the drop on him and ideally finish the fight before it began through sheer force, but would follow up with aiming for his belt to remove any opportunity for nasty surprises.

After which it'd become a tense back and forth, with a strong emphasis on mobility and using the environment to deliver severe blows while trying to avoid it becoming a grappling contest of any sort.

Ultimately, I think by breaking through his defenses and sheer will she'd be able to outlast him provided she got the first strikes in.

I was planning to do a post about how Stephanie was probably not able to follow Batman without him noticing thanks to natural talent, but thanks to living in an abusive home where she had to learn to be very quiet so as not to upset her dad, but your post does it so much better !

I love steph so much, she is a good fighter and no one talk about it bc she's not good in 'traditional' way

Remember when she hit Tim in the head with a brick? That's how she'd win. Catch him off guard with something unexpected and then WHAM!

i love it when Cass’ belt is drawn so big it looks like a mini skirt

My unpopular opinion is I don't even care when Cass loses to the other bats it just needs to be done in a way that MAKES. FUCKING. SENSE. Take this dumbass scene for example.

Do you have any idea how easy it would be to rewrite this into something okay? Say Jason tries to fight her H2H and she's yawning while she effortlessly dodges, then she grabs him and thinking quickly Jason activates his suit taser and blasts her, then goes for the arm blades while she's still reeling before Dick steps in. There, you now have a version of this scene that plays to Jason's main strength (his underhandedness) and Cass' main weakness (her cockiness) without totally shitting on Cass' skills and turning Jason into a bullshit Gary Stu. It'd still be annoying because of the context (they seriously reintroduced her to continuity and then couldn't even wait till the end of that issue to have her job to Jason fucking Todd) but in isolation I don't think anyone would have much of a problem with that version of the scene. That's always the rub though. They don't want Jason to win by cheating. They want their male faves to just be better than Cassandra Cain because they have zero respect for her and the idea of a girl who can beat up Batman makes them insecure.